Like many remote workers, Craig Young enjoys the freedom that comes with working from home.
Young recently started a job as Regional Vice President for FULLTHROTTLE – a Philadelphia-based advertising technology company. In this role, he and his team work remotely. “I’m very self-disciplined, so it works for me,” says Young, who lives with his wife and children in Evans (see photo above from Young’s FB page). “You really have full autonomy of your day.” He explains working remotely gives him the opportunity to help his wife with household chores and stay connected to his family. Young also likes not having to deal with the daily commute to and from work. “That’s 40 minutes back in the day”, time he can use for other activities, such as exercise, he states. “I don’t always have to start my day showering and getting dressed up.”
While working remotely has its benefits, Young says it can also make it more difficult to stay connected to co-workers. To combat this problem, some corporations have begun to schedule more frequent team meetings. “That inherently leads to death by meeting,” explains Young, who previously served as sales manager for Comcast Spotlight, a company that has required many of its employees to work remotely due to the pandemic. He states working from home certainly isn’t suited to every company and every employee, particularly those who need to be held accountable for their work.
Darin Myers – Local President of The Alternative Board, a peer-to-peer advisory group in Augusta, says allowing remote work can be beneficial to both employees and companies. “I’m all for it, but I don’t think it’s one size fits all, and I don’t think it will work well for every organization,” Myers states in an ABD podcast titled “Teamwork Shortage.” He explains companies that have a strong culture and well-established working relationships can thrive with remote workers. Myers says it’s important for business leaders to maintain the company culture and strong relationships to ensure working remotely remains successful. In some cases, “Slowly, over time, those bonds and relationships will be broken simply because people move on,” he states.
According to Rajeev Kapur – Chief Executive Officer of 1105 Media Inc. and author of “Chase Greatness: Enlightened Leadership for the Next Generation of Disruption”, the most important element of allowing employees to work from home is trust. “It’s very difficult to accomplish anything that requires cooperation, especially on a remote level, if trust isn’t in the mix,” says Kapur. “But trust takes time.”
For Young, working from home has been successful because of his ability to form and maintain bonds with his co-workers. “I’m a sales guy, so I was always a people person,” he adds.
